Career Center Every student should be thinking about getting a job before they graduate. The Career Center is here to help you find a job. Find job postings, get certifications to help build your resume, build interest from potential employers, and get valuable information on making yourself the best candidate you can be.
Complete the following short vocabulary quiz. Click ‘CONTINUE TO EXAM’ to start the exam for this chapter. Continue To Exam
Complete the following short vocabulary quiz. Click ‘CONTINUE TO EXAM’ to start the exam for this chapter. Continue To Exam
Complete the following short vocabulary quiz. Click ‘CONTINUE TO EXAM’ to start the exam for this chapter. Continue To Exam
3-09 Resources Ok new investor, you should be ready to begin. You can now leave the bleachers, put on a uniform, cross the white lines, and play. Stay focused, positive, and realistic. You might not make the Majors right away, but you can enter the investment world armed with solid knowledge, upon which you can expand by practice and repetition at a virtual trading simulation. … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-09 Resources
3-08 Set Goals and Targets You should have a “game plan” for your investing life. Just as you plan your workday, vacation, college financing, golf matches, and other areas of your personal and professional life, you need a plan, objective, and goal for your investment activities. Spend some quality time with yourself, thinking about what you really want to accomplish. Stating that you simply want … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-08 Set Goals and Targets
3-07 How to Record Gains and Losses Unfortunately, when it comes time to file your tax return, the IRS wants to know how much money you made or lost in your brokerage account. Your brokerage firm will even report to the IRS your total proceeds from all of your sales of stocks, but they don’t report your gains and losses. The reason they don’t report … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-07 How to Record Gains and Losses
3-06 Short Selling So far, we’ve talked about how to make your first trades – buying a stock you think will get more valuable. But what about if you are SURE a stock is about to tank? Wouldn’t it be great if you could make profit in both directions? With short selling, you can! What Is Short Selling? “Selling Short” is a way for an … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-06 Short Selling
3-05 Buying on Margin When you are opening a real brokerage, you will be asked if you want to open a Margin Account. Buying on margin means that you purchase securities using some of your own cash and you take a loan from your broker to complete the purchase. The collateral for the loan is the stocks or cash you already own. The difference between … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-05 Buying on Margin
3-04 Order Terms Now that you know some of the basic order terms, you can use Limit, Stop, and Trailing Stop orders to start building your portfolio, keeping an eye out for good deals and protecting yourself against loss. But when you go to actually place your order, there is one more option that pops up – “Duration”. “Duration” is also called the “Order Term” … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-04 Order Terms
3-03 Types of Orders-Market, Limit, Stop Once you have the ticker symbol for the company you wish to trade, you are ready to place your first order. Go to your virtual trading account and you’ll see several options for order type—market, limit, stop, and trailing stop. You have already found the symbol to trade “LUV” and you can enter any quantity of shares to buy. … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-03 Types of Orders-Market, Limit, Stop
3-02 Understanding Stock Quotes A stock quote gives essential information about a particular stock at a point in time. The quote normally includes information such as the name of the company, the ticker symbol, the price, the day’s high and low prices, and the trading volume. Details Usually when you get a stock quote, you see lots of other information about that company and that … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-02 Understanding Stock Quotes
3-01 How to Look Up a “Ticker Symbol” The first thing you must understand about trading stocks is that the exchanges have assigned each stock a unique “ticker symbol” for identification purposes. When researching stocks, getting quotes, and placing trades, you usually have to know the ticker symbol. Stock ticker symbols are usually 1 to 5 letters long. (Occasionally they contain a “.” or a … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 3-01 How to Look Up a “Ticker Symbol”
3-00 Chapter 3: Making Your First Trade Now that we covered the basics of different types of investments and why prices move, it is time to start “Learn by doing” and make your first trades. Best of all, you have your practice brokerage account to use, so you can try out your first investing strategies on real stocks with real prices, but with virtual money! … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW -3-00 Chapter 3: Making Your First Trade
2-11 Resources Don’t forget to check out a research platform like Zacks so you can compare stocks on your own. Zacks Rank uses a proprietary ranking system to evaluate stocks on a scale from 1 to 5; their #1 Strong Buy stocks have beaten the market in 26 of the 31 years they have been used. Now you should be a bit more familiar with … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-11 Resources
2-10 Buying Individual Stocks Versus Investing in Mutual Funds As a newer investor, you should also be aware that you can save some research time by investing in mutual funds instead of individual stocks. Mutual funds contain a mix and diversity of stocks in which you will spread out one investment into many small blocks of shares. Mutual funds and ETFs (exchange traded funds) have … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-10 Buying Individual Stocks Versus Investing in Mutual Funds
2-09 Why Stocks Are a Good Choice For Investing In this course, we generally advocate that stock market investing is an excellent choice to receive consistently high Return on Investment (ROI). This does not mean we think everyone should be “stock picking” – but that stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs generally provide the best return in the long run. Earlier in Chapter 1, we showed … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-09 Why Stocks Are a Good Choice to Earn High Returns
2-08 Brokers and How to Choose the Right Ones When you are ready to start buying your own stock, you won’t withdraw some cash from the ATM, head to New York, and look for someone with paper shares to sell. Instead, you would open an account with a stock brokerage, where you will make your trades. What is a Brokerage? Brokerages exist to allow individuals … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW -2-08 Brokers and How to Choose the Right Ones
2-07 The Danger of Trying to Time the Market The mere perception that a market is becoming Bearish is not a predictor of disaster. Fortunes have been made in A prolonged period of pessimism and falling stock prices that seems to feed on itself and generates even more pessimism and even lower stock prices. Bear Markets. The trick is to know when one is coming … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-07 The Danger of Trying to Time the Market
Business and economic popular news will often refer to “Bull” or “Bear” markets. You probably already have some idea what this means – “Bull” markets tend to be going up, while “Bear” markets tend to be going down. What is a Bull Market? A “Bull Market” means that investors are optimistic that stock prices are generally increasing, and that the market as a whole is … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-06 Bull vs. Bear Markets
2-05 Market Timing and Moving Now that you know what the stock market is and what role the Stock exchanges are simply organizations that allow people the ability to buy and sell stocks. Stock Exchange plays, let’s take a step back and look at how stock prices and the economy move. As you might expect, timing is extremely important in investing because you must learn … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-05 Market Timing and Moving
2-04 Public versus Private Companies & IPOs versus Secondary Market Securities Now that you know what an exchange is, it’s necessary to make a very important distinction between what shares trade on exchanges and what shares don’t. Most companies are private companies and don’t trade on exchanges. The barber shop and the florist on the corner, the guy that cuts your grass, and the plumber … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-04 Public versus Private Companies & IPOs versus Secondary Market Securities
2-03 Other Stock Exchanges In addition to the New York Stock Exchange, there is also the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and NASDAQ. In the past, the NASDAQ was for smaller companies that were just getting started, and it was prestigious for them to move up to the NYSE or AMEX. These smaller companies included a few you might have heard of, like Apple Computer (AAPL),Intel … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-03 Other Stock Exchanges
2-02 A History Lesson – Wall Street Wall Street” is a street in New York City, near the southern end of Manhattan Island. It is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, and the biggest center of stock trading and finance in the world. History The first European colony in what we now know as New York was actually dutch – the city’s original … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-02 A History Lesson – Wall Street
2-01 What Are Stock Exchanges? In the last lesson, we used a simple example of 10 buyers and 10 sellers who got together in the same room to make trades of one company’s stock. In the real world, there are hundreds of millions of people and companies trading trillions of shares of millions of company’s stocks – getting everyone in the same room would be … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-01 What Are Stock Exchanges?
2-00 Chapter 2: How the Stock Market Works and Why It Moves Now that we are introduced to some of the basic types of investments, we can look into how the stock market actually works, and why prices move. To understand the basics of the stock market, we need a quick refresher on some core economics – the laws of Supply and Demand. Supply and … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 2-00 Chapter 2
1-13 Resources Congratulations, you are through the first chapter! This is a glossary review and some extra resources for more information before we continue on to the chapter exam. Glossary Bank accounts – a depository account at a bank that acts as a secure way to store your money and withdraw it later. Checking Accounts – a type of bank account you would use for … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-13 Resources
1-12 Recent Performance of Investments Now that we have looked at several different types of investments, we can compare how they have performed over time. In this case, we will pretend we invested $10,000 in Stocks, Gold, Commercial Real Estate, Residential Real Estate, and a Savings Account in January of 2010, and pulled our money out at the end of May, 2021. This is how … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-12 Recent Performance of Investments
1-11 Real Estate If you are a homeowner, your home is probably where you keep most of your wealth. Everyone hopes to be able to sell their home for more than they paid for it – which means that every homeowner is a real estate investor! “Real Estate Investing” means making money based on buildings or properties. There are four main ways to be a … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-11 Real Estate
1-10 Foreign Currency and Foreign Stocks You just got some insider information – Nintendo is about to announce a new Zelda game, coming out on their new console. Gamers are getting pumped up, this is a sure-fire hit. As a savvy investor, you think now might be a good time to invest in Nintendo! But wait, Nintendo is not listed on major US exchanges – … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW -1-10 Foreign Currency and Foreign Stocks
1-09 Gold and Other Precious Metals When we covered commodities, we mentioned iron and copper, but not Gold and Silver. That is because Precious Metals operate by different rules than other commodities – and are very different to investors. This is because unlike iron or copper, which is just used as inputs for other industry powering the economy, Gold, Silver, Platinum and other precious metals … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-09 Gold and Other Precious Metals
1-08 Commodities So far, we have talked about what the average “retail investor” thinks about when investing – bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. But the world is a big place, and there are bigger ways to invest! Besides the stock market, the biggest investment markets in the world are for commodities – raw materials that form the basis for the economy. What Are … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-08 Commodities
1-07 Bonds Unlike Stocks are “equity investments” which means that individuals that own stock shares of a company actually own part of that company. stocks, which are equity instruments, A debt obligation of a company, the U.S. Treasury Department, or a city where the borrower receives funds (usually in increments of $1,000), makes semi-annual interest payments based on the coupon rate, and eventually repays the … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-07 Bonds
01-06 ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds) ETFs are a cross between mutual funds and stocks. ETFs are simply a portfolio of stocks or [ts]bonds[tm]A debt obligation of a company, the U.S. Treasury Department, or a city where the borrower receives funds (usually in increments of $1,000), makes semi-annual interest payments based on the coupon rate, and eventually repays the borrowed amount ($1,000) to the lender at the … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW -1-06 ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds)
1-05 Mutual Funds A mutual fund is a type of investment where a money manager takes your cash and invests it as he sees fit, usually following some rough guidelines. For example, the Fidelity Group has a fund that specializes in finding high dividend paying [ts]stocks[tm]Stocks are “equity investments”, which means that individuals that own stock shares of a company actually own part of that … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW -1-05 Mutual Funds
1-04 Stocks Stocks are “equity investments” which means that when you own shares of a company you own part of that company. For example, if you own 1,000 shares of Apple Computer stock and Apple has 1,000,000 shares that are “issued and outstanding,” then you own 0.1% of the company. If Apple were then to be sold to another company for $50,000,000, then each share … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-04 Stocks
1-03 Certificates of Deposit (CDs) With a [ts]CD[tm]An investment choice at most banks where you agree to deposit a specific amount of money for a fixed period of time (this is called the maturity). By agreeing to keep your money at the bank for a certain length of time, the bank usually pays you an interest rate higher than savings and Money Market accounts.[te], you … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-03 Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
01-02 Basic Bank Accounts Bank accounts are issued by banks, credit unions, and savings & loan institutions as a secure way to store your money and make it easily accessible later (without carrying around all your cash everywhere you go). If you are sitting with your first $500, you usually have two options for accounts: a Savings Account, or a Checking Account. Before we get … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 01-02 Basic Bank Accounts
1-00 Chapter 1: Introduction To Investing Whether you have $1,000 or $1,000,000 in savings, education is the key to empowering yourself to take charge of your financial future. In this course you will learn about the different broad investment choices you have available. Specifically, you will learn how the stock market works, how to evaluate stocks, bonds and options and how to build and manage … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-00 Chapter 1
1-01 Understanding Investment Choices The first time Tiger Woods grabbed a golf club he couldn’t hit the ball perfectly straight 300 yards and the first time Michael Jordan touched a basketball he couldn’t dunk it, so don’t think that you will be able to earn a 100% return in the first year. Before Tiger could hit a golf ball 300 yards, he had to learn … Continue reading Inv101 – WSS/HTMW – 1-01 Understanding Investment Choices
Buying a car? Here are the key terms to know about auto loans Buying a car can leave you feeling like auto dealers are speaking a whole new language when they talk about things like a down payment, depreciation, direct lending or dealer financing. Follow this map to understand these terms and learn how financing a car can impact your budget. Check out this infographic, … Continue reading BOA – Buying a Car Non-Profit
Buying a car? Here are the key terms to know about auto loans Buying a car can leave you feeling like auto dealers are speaking a whole new language when they talk about things like a down payment, depreciation, direct lending or dealer financing. Follow this map to understand these terms and learn how financing a car can impact your budget. Check out this infographic, … Continue reading BOA – Buying a Car College
Buying a car? Here are the key terms to know about auto loans Buying a car can leave you feeling like auto dealers are speaking a whole new language when they talk about things like a down payment, depreciation, direct lending or dealer financing. Follow this map to understand these terms and learn how financing a car can impact your budget. Check out this infographic, … Continue reading BOA – Buying a Car HS
How to balance your family’s savings priorities Saving for one is hard enough, but family savings multiply the challenge. You have short-term desires versus long-term goals, plus unexpected expenses that can pop up regularly. Read this short lesson, then return here to answer a quiz question to continue!
How to balance your family’s savings priorities Saving for one is hard enough, but family savings multiply the challenge. You have short-term desires versus long-term goals, plus unexpected expenses that can pop up regularly. Read this short lesson, then return here to answer a quiz question to continue!
How to balance your family’s savings priorities Saving for one is hard enough, but family savings multiply the challenge. You have short-term desires versus long-term goals, plus unexpected expenses that can pop up regularly. Read this short lesson, then return here to answer a quiz question to continue!